Authorities
in the United Arab Emirates should immediately release Ahmed Mansoor,
an award-winning human rights defender who is facing charges that
violate his right to freedom of expression, dozens of human rights
organisations said today, one month after his arrest.

Mansoor,
who received the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights
Defenders in 2015, has been in detention since 20 March 2017 facing
speech-related charges that include using social media websites to
“publish false information that harms national unity.” On 28 March, a
group of United Nations (UN) human rights experts called on the UAE
government to release him immediately, describing his arrest as “a
direct attack on the legitimate work of human rights defenders in the
UAE.”

Informed
sources have told rights groups that about a dozen security officers
arrested Mansoor at his home in Ajman in the pre-dawn hours of 20 March.
They conducted an extensive search and took away all of the family’s
mobile phones and laptops, including those belonging to his young
children. His family had no information on his whereabouts until
authorities issued an official statement on 29 March, saying he was in
detention in the Central Prison in Abu Dhabi.

The
signatories understand that Mansoor’s family have been allowed only one
short supervised visit with him which took place two weeks after his
arrest on 03 April, when authorities moved him from where he was being
held, believed to be a detention facility adjacent to Al-Wathba Prison,
to a prosecutor’s office in Abu Dhabi. Informed sources told rights
groups that Mansoor is being held in solitary confinement and has not
spoken to a lawyer.

The
UAE’s official news agency, WAM, said on 20 March that Mansoor had been
arrested on the orders of the Public Prosecution for Cybercrimes and
detained pending further investigation. It said that he is accused of
using social media websites to: “publish false information and rumors;”
“promote [a] sectarian and hate-incited agenda;” and “publish false and
misleading information that harm national unity and social harmony and
damage the country’s reputation.”

The
statement classified these as “cybercrimes,” indicating that the
charges against him may be based on alleged violations of the UAE’s
repressive 2012 cybercrime law, which authorities have used to imprison
numerous activists and which provides for long prison sentences and
severe financial penalties.

In
the weeks leading up to his arrest, Mansoor had called for the release
of Osama Al-Najjar, who remains in prison, despite having completed a
three-year prison sentence on charges related to his peaceful activities
on Twitter. Mansoor had also criticised the prosecution of Dr. Nasser
Bin Ghaith, a prominent academic and economist, who was sentenced to 10
years in prison on 29 March, for charges that included speech-related
offenses, including peaceful criticism of the UAE and Egyptian
authorities.

Mansoor
had also used his Twitter account to draw attention to human rights
violations across the region, including in Egypt and those committed by
the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. He had also signed a joint letter with
other activists in the region calling on leaders at the Arab Summit in
Jordan at the end of March to release political prisoners in their
countries.

The
UN special rapporteurs on human rights defenders, on the promotion and
protection of the right to freedom of expression and opinion, and on
freedom of peaceful assembly and association, along with the Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Working Group on Enforced or
Involuntary Disappearances, said in their 28 March statement that
Mansoor’s “outstanding work in the protection of human rights and the
advancement of democracy, as well as his transparent collaboration with
UN mechanisms, is of great value not only for the UAE but for the whole
region.”

The
UN experts said they feared that his arrest “may constitute an act of
reprisal for his engagement with UN human rights mechanisms, for the
views he expressed on social media, including Twitter, as well as for
being an active member of organisations such as the Gulf Centre for
Human Rights (GCHR), and an active supporter of others, including Human
Rights Watch.”

Mansoor is a member of GCHR's Advisory Board and Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Advisory Committee.

On
29 March, the UAE authorities responded directly to the UN experts’
statement, disputing the allegation that Mansoor’s detention was
arbitrary, and stating that Mansoor “has the freedom to hire a lawyer
and that his family has full access to the place of confinement and is
allowed to visit him.” In 2015, the UN Special Rapporteur on the
independence of judges and lawyers, who visited the UAE in 2014,
expressed concern that lawyers who take up cases related to state
security “have been harassed, threatened and had pressure exerted on
them,” and that “impunity surrounding such breaches of the independence
of the legal profession has had a chilling effect on lawyers,” making it
difficult for defendants in the UAE to secure a lawyer of their choice.

UAE
authorities have harassed and persecuted Mansoor for more than six
years. In November 2011, the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi
sentenced Mansoor to three years in prison for insulting the country’s
top officials in a trial marred by serious legal and procedural flaws.
The UAE president, Sheikh Khalifa Nin Zayed Al-Nahyan, pardoned Mansoor
on 28 November, 2011, but authorities never returned his passport,
imposing a de facto travel ban. He has also experienced physical
assaults, death threats, government surveillance, and a sophisticated
spyware attack.

People
in the UAE who speak about human rights abuses are at serious risk of
arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and torture, and many are serving
long prison terms or have felt compelled to leave the country. To the
knowledge of the signatories, Mansoor was the last remaining human
rights defender in the UAE who had been able to criticise the
authorities publicly.

The
authorities should release Mansoor immediately, since the charges
against him relate to his human rights work and his criticism of the
authorities, the signatories said. They should give him immediate and
regular access to his family and a lawyer of his choosing, and end the
harassment of rights defenders and critics of the authorities.